Is it possible and worthwhile to partition a 300 GB drive into two 150 GB partitions and stripe the partitions as a Type 0 RAID? Would such a setup result in faster data transfer than with an un-partitioned drive? (Of course, I would also be thinking of a separate backup drive).
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RAID Question
- Thread starter ralphjh
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No. The idea behind striping drives is to use different physical drives. Striping two partitions on a single drive is a waste of time and resources.
ralphjh said:
As far as my not-so-extensive-knowledge-of-RAIDs goes, this would be of no benefit. Striping is designed to be faster by using multiple HD's simultaneously... some dude thought "Hey, I've got 4 HD's, why not have them all reading and writing together?" and designed striping. If there's only one device and it's attempting to write to itself in two separate locations simultaneously, I think it would actually make it slower.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
RAID Question
Thanks for the timely response. Let's try another tack. What about two hard drives, each containing two equal partitions. Could one stripe the first partition of each drive into a RAID 0 array? Would that result in increased data transfer rate?
The remaining partitions on each drive could be used for backup, either manually or by striping the second partition on each drive the same and combine the two sets as a RAID 1 setup for redundancy. The whole idea is to use 4 partitions instead of 4 drives to accomplish a RAID 0+1 setup at the expense of less total storage.
ChrisBrightwell said:
Thanks for the timely response. Let's try another tack. What about two hard drives, each containing two equal partitions. Could one stripe the first partition of each drive into a RAID 0 array? Would that result in increased data transfer rate?
The remaining partitions on each drive could be used for backup, either manually or by striping the second partition on each drive the same and combine the two sets as a RAID 1 setup for redundancy. The whole idea is to use 4 partitions instead of 4 drives to accomplish a RAID 0+1 setup at the expense of less total storage.
Perhaps you should revisit the expansion of the acronym:ralphjh said:
Redudnant Array of Independent Disks.
Raid 0+1 w/ anything less than 4 drives is a waste. You can stripe across two drives or you can mirror one drive to another, but configuring RAID to use two partitions on a single drive is just a waste of time and resources.
ChrisBrightwell said:
Actually RAID 0+1 with less than 4 drives is impossible. You need two drives per RAID 0 and two RAID 0 volumes to mirror:
Physical Disk A + Physical Disk B = RAID 0 Volume 1
Physical Disk C + Physical Disk D = RAID 0 Volume 2
then mirror RAID 0 Volumes 1 and 2.
EDIT: Ack.. I see you were talking about partitions..
I've never done a RAID with a partition.. Just a waste.. Like you said.. 
ralphjh said:
What you're proposing basically removes the R from RAID. Either one of those disks goes down (mechanical), and you're screwed...IMHO
You could do a mirror(1) and partition it after it is mirrored, then you have double the read speed, and the same right speed.